There was a moment during Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem Ball” tour opener at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday night where she faced her demon, her past, perhaps even her ego. It came near the end of the show as she embarked on a rendition of “Million Reasons,” locking fingers with a dancer dressed in a red lace ensemble not unlike the archival Alexander McQueen outfit she wore while accepting the 2009 MTV Video Music Award for best new artist. Soon, that crimson figure paddled Gaga in a gondola across the stage as she sang a reconfigured version of “Shallow,” a lantern illuminating their journey.
That red dancer was a recurring personification of the past as a sort of counterpoint, or even a guide, to her present at the first show of the “Mayhem Ball,” a reminder of where she came from and who she’s become. Throughout the two-hour and 12-minute evening, she threaded a narrative that explored the various touchpoints of her decades-long career, confecting a breathless, finely-tuned spectacular that once again reinforced that when it comes to Gaga, success is never an accident — just a welcome reminder of her many, many talents and, more importantly, how she’s continued to refine them. (She said as much at the end, listing herself in the closing credits twice as director.)
“Mayhem Ball,” which will be staged across several nights in various U.S. cities before shipping overseas through next January, follows the tour’s namesake, her seventh album, which arrived this past March. That project was as much about reupholstering Gaga’s earlier work — the dance floor abandon of “The Fame,” the bravado pop of “The Fame Monster” — as it was about refreshing it for contemporary times. Coming off the self-seriousness of “Joker: Folie à Deux” and accompanying vanity album “Harlequin,” Gaga returned to the basics without giving in to pastiche. On “Mayhem,” she sounded fun and refreshed, like she was enjoying the artifice of pop for the first time in a long time.
At “Mayhem Ball,” she framed the show around that theme across a four-act production that evoked everything from life and death to the gothic and macabre. Gaga writhed in a sandbox surrounded by skeletons for “Perfect Celebrity” and caressed the eye of a gigantic skull for “Killah,” black roses dripping down her outfit; elsewhere, she donned a white wedding dress with a long train illuminated by a rainbow for “Paparazzi” and wore white goblin-like finger prosthetics for “Bad Romance.” Throughout the night, Gaga was fixated on the opposing forces of light and dark, good and evil. To her, at least on the surface, they’re dependent on each other and crucial to the human experience, particularly when it’s filtered through art.
During the show, Gaga hung these lofty concepts on the robust catalog she’s amassed. A Gaga show is as deep as you want to read into it, and in Vegas, there was plenty to sort through. But at the heart of her performance was a parade of hits that served as the backbone of the Gaga experience, one that continuously elicited screams and chants from the attendees decked out in Gaga costumes inspired by the “Die With a Smile” video and tees brandishing many of the “Born This Way” mantras.
Much of the anticipation of the kick-off rested on speculation of how much it would differ from the two headlining sets she had at Coachella earlier this year, where she debuted the “Mayhem” live experience, as well as the follow-up shows she did in Mexico City and Brazil. Those in attendance at Coachella — or the millions who watched the livestream from home — would notice the very similar cues of the first two acts, as they were almost entirely the same as before (with the exception of a bit of “Aura” and the inclusion of “LoveGame”).
But it was in the latter half that she toggled with the setlist and performance, introducing new flavors to the production. There was no “Blade of Grass” or “Always Remember Us This Way,” as she’d sung in Singapore; instead, she folded in “Applause” and “Summerboy,” and swapped “How Bad Do U Want Me” as the evening’s closer. She sang a new rendition of “Die With a Smile” at the lip of the stage on a piano; “Shallow” had a fresh arrangement that offered a different texture to the melodramatic ballad.
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The discourse among fans leading up to the “Mayhem Ball” was that Gaga potentially sold herself short by staging the tour in arenas instead of stadiums. And the evening might have said as much, scaling down some of the more grandiose aspects of her Coachella performance — the medieval facade in the backdrop, the chessboard in the middle of the audience — to fit into a smaller setting. But Gaga somehow made that feel inconsequential; “Mayhem Ball” still felt outsized and large. Its ideas were as big as its presentation, and Gaga kept its focus with over-the-top theatrics and an even greater vision.
At that, Gaga waited to ground her first “Mayhem Ball” performance in reality until the end. She left the stage after “Vanish Into You,” giving one last hurrah with “Bad Romance” as she’d done at prior shows. Just then, the opening notes of “How Bad Do U Want Me” cued up as she appeared on the screens from backstage, the cameras fixated as she slipped into a Cramps t-shirt and beanie. She reemerged, her dancers in tow, as normal-looking as Gaga could ever be, the version that she is when no one’s looking. Gone were the hauntings of the past and the idealized pop star of the present that dominated the last few hours; here was Gaga, as bare as can be, taking one last bow to roaring applause.
From Variety US